Portugal is where my heart is

Portugal is good for me.

There’s really no other way to say it. I mean, the pint of Ben & Jerry’s Choco-lotta Cheesecake Sundae ice cream I ate with my heart sister last night (let’s be clear, we each ate one) was probably not great for me but the fact there’s a good chance we burned it off by laughing until we hurt meant it might not have been as bad as it seems. But I digress….

Portugal is good for me. One of the people I love most in the world lives here. Our lives have been woven together since about 2003. We’ve been through the toughest of times and the best of times. Laughing, crying. Soft, supportive love. Tough, ass-kicking love. Death, breakups, finding true love, dating schmucks who can’t get their shit together. We’ve seen and done it all, it seems. 

She’s one of the few people in the world who can say anything to me and I’ll listen with an open mind and an open heart because I know it comes from a place of love. Yesterday, I tried on a cream-coloured monochromatic athletic outfit and she told me I looked like an ice cream cone. That kind of love. 

When she left Canada to follow her heart and her love to Portugal years ago, I didn’t know how our friendship would look. But distance did nothing to break the bond. By the time she left — about a dozen years ago — we’d already been through so much together that distance was a non-issue.

Facebook, video chats, WhatsApp, calculating time differences (she’s seven hours ahead) —really, it has been effortless. Coming to see her with My Favourite Husband (MFH) was always supposed to happen but didn't. When MFH died, she supported me the way that only chosen family can. Had I said the word, she would’ve been on a plane to give me whatever I needed. I didn’t know what I needed and so she loved me from a place geographically farther away.

When I came to Portugal a year ago, I felt like I was coming home. I felt instantly at ease with my surroundings. I felt calm and relaxed and curious and excited about where I was and who I was with. I did some things that were good for me: throwing my guilt into the sea, releasing some of the feelings of not being enough I made myself feel in the time I was married. Portugal felt like a release and a reset.

This time around, I am moving confidently in my surroundings. Navigating it all — trains, towns, language, surroundings — it feels familiar even though some of it is new. 

I get excited when I recognize places and streets and I’m here longer this time and eager to learn my way around this beautiful country even more. And while I don’t have guilt to set free from my conscious, I did write a message to give myself closure and peace of mind to an intermezzo that was causing me confusion and angst. I expect no response. I didn’t write it for a response. In fact, much like giving up my guilt to the sea was for me, writing a message to draw the curtain on that moment in time was to set me free.

I might’ve, with time, been ready to do this in Canada but the distance and my surroundings here, in my second home, provided me with the right time to find my peace.

Portugal is good for me.

I believe that this will always be a place where I will be able to release. To reset. I will always find what my heart, my mind and my soul need to gain peace. If my confidence gets battered, even a bit, the strong, loving arms of my heart sister and her husband and the strong, welcoming arms of this country will unearth the strong, confident woman I am.

❤️